Information storage medium containing subtitles and processing apparatus therefor

ABSTRACT

An information storage medium containing subtitles and a subtitle processing apparatus, where the information storage medium includes: audio-visual (AV) data; and subtitle data in which at least one subtitle text data and output style information designating an output form of the subtitle texts are stored with a text format. With this, output times of subtitle texts included in the text subtitle data can be overlapped, a subtitle file can be easily produced, and subtitles for an AV stream can be output with various forms.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 10/984,776filed on Nov. 10, 2004, now pending, and claims the priorities of KoreanPatent Application No. 2003-79181, filed on Nov. 10, 2003 in the KoreanIntellectual Property Office and Korean Patent Application No.2004-83517, filed on Oct. 19, 2004 in the Korean Intellectual PropertyOffice. The disclosures of application Ser. No. 10/984,776 and KoreanPatent Application Nos. 2003-79181 and 2004-83517 are incorporatedherein by reference in their entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to an information storage medium, and moreparticularly, to an information storage medium containing a plurality ofsubtitles that can be separately displayed and a processing apparatustherefor.

2. Description of the Related Art

A conventional subtitle is a bitmap image that is included in anaudio-visual (AV) stream. Therefore, it is inconvenient to produce sucha subtitle, and there is no choice but to merely read the subtitle inits present form without modification since a user cannot select variousattributes of the subtitle defined by a subtitle producer. That is,since the attributes, such as font, character size, and character color,are predetermined and included in the AV stream as a bitmap image, theuser cannot change the attributes at will.

Also, since the subtitle is compressed and encoded in the AV stream, anoutput start time and an output end time of the subtitle are clearlydesignated to correspond to the AV stream, and reproduction times whensubtitles are output should not overlap. That is, only one subtitleshould be output at a certain time.

However, since an output start time and an output end time of a subtitleare designated by a subtitle producer and recorded on an informationstorage medium separately from the AV stream, the output start times andoutput end times of a plurality of subtitles may overlap one another. Inother words, since more than two subtitles may be output in a certaintime period, a method of solving this problem is necessary.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In an aspect of the present invention, the present invention provides aninformation storage medium having recorded thereon a plurality of textsubtitles that are separately displayed although overlapping one anotherand an apparatus for reproducing the information storage medium.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided aninformation storage medium including: AV data; and subtitle data inwhich at least one subtitle text data or output style informationdesignating an output form of the subtitle texts are stored in a textformat.

In an aspect of the present invention, the output style informationcontains pieces of information so that the output style information isdifferently applied to the subtitle texts.

In an aspect of the present invention, when a plurality of subtitle dataexists, the plurality of subtitle data is separately rendered, andrendered images compose a plurality of pages, respectively.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provideda text subtitle processing apparatus including: a text subtitle parserseparately extracting rendering information used to render a text fromtext subtitle data and control information used to present the renderedtext; and a text layout/font renderer generating a bitmap image of asubtitle text by rendering the subtitle text according to the extractedrendering information.

In an aspect of the present invention, the text layout/font rendererrenders at least one subtitle text data by applying different styles tothe subtitle text data and composes a plurality of pages with aplurality of rendered images.

Additional aspects and/or advantages of the invention will be set forthin part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obviousfrom the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and/or other aspects and advantages of the invention will becomeapparent and more readily appreciated from the following description ofthe embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings ofwhich:

FIG. 1 illustrates a structure of a text subtitle file;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an apparatus reproducing an informationstorage medium on which a text subtitle is recorded;

FIG. 3 is a detailed block diagram of the text subtitle processing unitof FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a reference block diagram illustrating generation of a bitmapimage without a presentation engine;

FIG. 5 is an example diagram illustrating correlations betweenstructures in which composition information, position information,object information, and color information are recorded;

FIGS. 6A through 6C are diagrams illustrating a process of generating animage for a plurality of subtitles using one composition informationdata and one position information data;

FIGS. 7A through 7C are diagrams illustrating a process of generating animage for a plurality of subtitles using one composition informationdata and a plurality of position information data; and

FIGS. 8A through 8C are diagrams illustrating a process of generating animage so that one image object is included in one compositioninformation data by allocating a plurality of composition informationdata for a plurality of subtitles.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

Reference will now be made in detail to the embodiments of the presentinvention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanyingdrawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to the like elementsthroughout. The embodiments are described below to explain the presentinvention by referring to the figures.

FIG. 1 illustrates a structure of a text subtitle file 100. Referring toFIG. 1, the text subtitle file 100 includes dialog information 110,presentation information 120, and meta data 130 a and 130 b.

The dialog information 110 includes subtitle texts, output start timesof the subtitle texts, output end times of the subtitle texts, stylegroups or style information used to render the subtitle texts, textchange effect information such as fade-in and fade-out, and a formattingcode of the subtitle texts. The formatting code includes one or more ofa code displaying a text with bold characters, a code for displaying thetext in italics, a code indicating underlining, or a code indicating aline change.

The presentation information 120 includes style information used torender the subtitle texts and comprises a plurality of style groups. Astyle group is a bundle of styles on which the style information isrecorded. A style includes information used to render and display asubtitle text. This information includes, for example, one or more of astyle name, a font, a text color, a background color, a text size, aline-height, a text output region, a text output start position, anoutput direction, or an align method.

The meta data 130 a and 130 b, which are additional information of amoving picture, include information required to perform additionalfunctions except a subtitle output function. For example, an additionalfunction may be displaying a TV Parental Guideline such as “TV-MA” on ascreen for a program intended for mature audiences.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an apparatus reproducing an informationstorage medium on which a text subtitle file is recorded. It isunderstood that the apparatus may also record the text subtitle file tothe information storage medium.

Referring to FIG. 2, a text subtitle processing unit 220 renders asubtitle text in order to process a text subtitle file. The textsubtitle processing unit 220 includes a text subtitle parser 221, whichextracts presentation information and dialog information from the textsubtitle file, and a text layout/font renderer 222, which generates anoutput image by rendering the subtitle text according to the extractedpresentation information.

The text subtitle file 100 illustrated in FIG. 1 may be recorded on aninformation storage medium or in a memory included in a reproducingapparatus. In FIG. 2, the information storage medium or the memory onwhich the text subtitle file is recorded is called a subtitleinformation storage unit 200.

A text subtitle file corresponding to a reproducing moving picture andfont data to be used to render the subtitle are read from the subtitleinformation storage unit 200 and stored in a buffer 210. The textsubtitle file stored in the buffer 210 is transmitted to a text subtitleparser 221, which parses information required to render the textsubtitle file. A subtitle text, font information, and rendering styleinformation are transmitted to the text layout/font renderer 222, andcontrol information of the subtitle text is transmitted to a compositionbuffer 233 of a presentation engine 230. The control information (i.e.,information for displaying a screen with the subtitle text) includes anoutput region and an output start position.

The text layout/font renderer 222 generates a bitmap image by renderingthe subtitle text using text rendering information transmitted from thetext subtitle parser 221 and the font data transmitted from the buffer210, composes one subtitle page by designating an output start time andan output end time of each subtitle text, and transmits the bitmap imageand the subtitle page to an object buffer 234 of the presentation engine230.

The subtitle of the bitmap image form read from the subtitle informationstorage unit 200 is input to a coded data buffer 231 and processed by agraphic processing unit 232 in the presentation engine 230. Accordingly,the graphic processing unit 232 generates a bitmap image. The generatedbitmap image is transmitted to the object buffer 234, and controlinformation of the bitmap image is transmitted to the composition buffer233. The control information is used to designate a time and a positionat which the bitmap image stored in the object buffer 234 is output to agraphic planer 240 and designating a color lookup table (CLUT) 250 inwhich color information to be applied to the bitmap image output to thegraphic planer 240 is recorded. The composition buffer 233 receivesobject composition information transmitted from the text subtitle parser221 and bitmap subtitle data processed by the graphic processing unit232 and transmits control information for outputting the subtitle onto ascreen to a graphic controller 235. The graphic controller 235 controlsthe object buffer 234 to combine the bitmap subtitle data processed bythe graphic processing unit 232 and rendered subtitle text object datareceived from the text layout/font renderer 222 and the graphic planer240 to generate a graphic plane from the combined data, and outputs thegraphic plane to a display unit (not shown) with reference to the CLUT250.

FIG. 3 is a detailed block diagram of the text subtitle processing unit220 of FIG. 2. Referring to FIG. 3, a subtitle, which is text subtitlefile information, is input to the text subtitle parser 221. The textsubtitle parser 221 transmits subtitle control information parsed fromthe subtitle to the presentation engine 230 and text renderinginformation parsed from the subtitle to the text layout/font renderer222. The text layout/font renderer 222 receives the text renderinginformation from the text subtitle parser 221 and stores controlinformation of a subtitle text in an element control data buffer 290,subtitle text data in a text data buffer 291, and style information usedto render the subtitle text data in a style data buffer 292. Also, thetext layout/font renderer 222 stores font data used for text renderingin a font data buffer 293.

The control information stored in the element control data buffer 290may be a formatting code. The formatting code includes one or more of acode displaying a text with bold characters, a code displaying the textin Italics, a code indicating underlining, or a code indicating a linechange. The subtitle text data stored in the text data buffer 291 istext data to be output as a subtitle. The style data stored in the styledata buffer 292 may be one or more of data such as a font, a text color,a background color, a text size, a line-height, a text output region, atext output start position, an output direction, or an alignment method.A text renderer 294 generates a subtitle image with reference to theinformation recorded in each buffer and transmits the subtitle image tothe presentation engine 230.

FIG. 4 is a reference block diagram illustrating generation of a bitmapimage without the presentation engine 230.

That is, FIG. 4 illustrates another embodiment of an operation of thetext subtitle processing unit 220 which includes a text subtitlecontroller 410 instead of the presentation engine 230.

Referring to FIG. 4, the text layout/font renderer 222 generatescomposition information, position information, object information, andcolor information and generates a bitmap image on the basis of thecomposition information, the position information, the objectinformation, and the color information. The text subtitle controller 410receives object composition information from the text subtitle parser221 and controls the text layout/font renderer 222 to directly outputthe bitmap image generated by the text layout/font renderer 222 to thegraphic planer 240 and the CLUT 250.

FIG. 5 is an example diagram illustrating correlations betweenstructures in which composition information, position information,object information, and color information are recorded.

A subtitle that is output onto a screen is composed of page units. Eachpage can also include data used for other purposes besides the subtitle.The composition information refers to information containing informationused to compose one page. The composition information includes outputtime information indicating a page output time, an object informationreference value indicating an output image object, a positioninformation reference value indicating an object output position, and acolor information reference value indicating object color information.

The correlations between the information structures shown in FIG. 5 area part of the composition information, and it is also possible tocompose the correlations between position information, objectinformation, and color information in a different form from FIG. 5.

Referring to FIG. 5, one page can include at least one region foroutputting an image onto a screen. The at least one region is classifiedby the position information reference value. Position information refersto a recorded structure of information required to compose the at leastone region to output the image. The position information includesinformation of horizontal and vertical coordinates of each region, awidth of the region, and a height of the region. The object informationincludes object data to be displayed on the screen. Also, the objectinformation includes object data type information corresponding to theobject data.

An operation of the text subtitle processing unit 220 will be describedas an example. The text subtitle processing unit 220 generates thecomposition information, the position information, the objectinformation, and the color information of each rendered subtitle imageto be output onto the screen in order to provide a subtitle text. Thegenerated composition information, position information, objectinformation, and color information are transmitted to the presentationengine 230.

As described above, when an information storage medium containingsubtitles generated in a text form is reproduced, various exemplarymethods of outputting more than one subtitle at the same time exist.

In a first method, the text subtitle processing unit 220 generates a newimage for a plurality of subtitles, text output times of which areoverlapped, and transmits a subtitle composed of objects generated to beoutput to one position information in one composition information to thepresentation engine 230.

There is a second method of composing the subtitles so that thesubtitles, text output times of which are overlapped, have differentposition information. That is, the text subtitle processing unit 220generates an image of the plurality of subtitles, text output times ofwhich are overlapped, using different position information data in onecomposition information and transmits the generated image to thepresentation engine 230.

There is a third method of generating subtitles, text output times ofwhich are overlapped, using different composition information. That is,the text subtitle processing unit 220 generates different compositioninformation data for a plurality of subtitles, text output times ofwhich are overlapped, so that only one object is included in onecomposition information data.

The three methods will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 6through 8.

FIGS. 6A through 6C are diagrams illustrating a process of generating animage for a plurality of subtitles using one composition informationdata and one position information data.

In FIG. 6A, a style “Script” is defined as style information used forsubtitle text rendering. Referring to FIG. 6A, the style “Script” uses afont “Arial.ttf”, a text color “black”, a background color “white”, acharacter size “16pt”, a text reference position of coordinates (x, y),an alignment method “center”, an output direction“left-to-right-top-to-bottom”, a text output region “left, top, width,height”, and a line-height “40px”.

In FIG. 6B, subtitle texts 610, 620, and 630 rendered using the style“Script” are defined. Referring to FIG. 6B, the subtitle text Hello 610is output from “00:10:00” to “00:15:00”, the subtitle text Subtitle 620is output from “00:12:00” to “00:17:00”, and the subtitle text World 630is output from “00:14:00” to “00:19:00”. Therefore, two or threesubtitle texts are output between “00:12:00” and “00:17:00”. Here,“<br/>” indicates a line change. Using of the <br/> tag can prevent aplurality of subtitles from being overlapped on one region even thoughone style is used.

FIG. 6C shows a result of outputting the subtitles defined in FIGS. 6Aand 6B. Referring to FIG. 6C, data stored in each buffer of the textsubtitle processing unit 220 in each illustrated time window will bedescribed in detail.

Before “00:10:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, when outputcomposition information includes a void subtitle image, comprises:

Element control data buffer: void;Text data buffer: void;Style data buffer: style information of “Script”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

From “00:10:00” to “00:12:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, whenoutput composition information including an image in which the subtitletext Hello 610 is rendered, comprises:

Element control data buffer: control information of the subtitle textHello 610;Text data buffer: “Hello”;Style data buffer: style information of “Script”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

From “00:12:00” to “00:14:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, whenoutput composition information including an image in which the subtitletext Hello 610 and the subtitle text Subtitle 620 are rendered,comprises:

Element control data buffer: control information of the subtitle textHello 610 and the subtitle text Subtitle 620;Text data buffer: “Hello” and “<br/>Subtitle”;Style data buffer: style information of “Script”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

From “00:14:00” to “00:15:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, whenoutput composition information including an image in which the subtitletext Hello 610, the subtitle text Subtitle 620, and the subtitle textWorld 630 are rendered, comprises:

Element control data buffer: control information of the subtitle textHello 610, the subtitle text Subtitle 620, and the subtitle text World630;Text data buffer: “Hello” and “<br/>Subtitle” and “<br/><br/>World”;Style data buffer: style information of “Script”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

From “00:15:00” to “00:17:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, whenoutput composition information including an image in which the subtitletext Subtitle 620 and the subtitle text World 630 are rendered,comprises:

Element control data buffer: control information of the subtitle textSubtitle 620 and the subtitle text World 630;Text data buffer: “<br/>Subtitle” and “<br/><br/>World”;Style data buffer: style information of “Script”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

From “00:17:00” to “00:19:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, whenoutput composition information including an image in which the subtitletext World 630 is rendered, comprises:

Element control data buffer: control information of the subtitle textWorld 630;Text data buffer: “<br/><br/>World”;Style data buffer: style information of “Script”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

After “00:19:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, when outputcomposition information includes a void subtitle image, comprises:

Element control data buffer: void;Text data buffer: void;Style data buffer: style information of “Script”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

As shown in the above subtitle output process, in the first method, onesubtitle image is generated by applying the same style to a plurality ofsubtitle texts having overlapped output times, one compositioninformation data including the one subtitle image is generated, and thegenerated composition information data is transmitted to thepresentation engine 230. At this time, page_time_out indicating the timewhen the transmitted composition information disappears from a screenrefers to the time when a subtitle that is the last output to the screenamong a plurality of subtitles having overlapped output times disappearsor the time when a new subtitle is added.

Text subtitle processing of the output subtitles must be quicklyperformed considering a time T_(decoding) taken to perform decoding ofthe subtitles in the text subtitle processing unit 220 and a timeT_(composition) taken to output the rendered subtitles from the objectbuffer 234 to the graphic planer 240. When T_(start) indicates the timewhen a subtitle is output from the text subtitle processing unit 220 ofthe reproducing apparatus, and when T_(arrival) indicates the time whenthe subtitle arrives at the text subtitle processing unit 220,correlations between these times are calculated by Equation 1.

$\begin{matrix}{{{T_{start} - T_{arrival}} \geq {T_{decoding} + T_{composition}}}{T_{decoding} = {T_{rendering} + T_{{composition}\mspace{14mu} {information}\mspace{14mu} {generation}}}}{T_{rendering} = {\sum\limits_{i = 0}^{{Num}\mspace{14mu} {of}\mspace{14mu} {char}}T_{{char}{(i)}}}}} & {{Equation}\mspace{20mu} 1}\end{matrix}$

Referring to Equation 1, it can be known how quickly the text subtitlemust be processed. Here, T_(decoding) indicates the time taken to rendera subtitle to be output, generating composition information including arendered object, and transmitting the generated composition informationto the object buffer 234. The subtitle requiring an output time ofT_(start) must start to be processed before at least the time obtainedby adding T_(decoding) and T_(composition) The time T_(decoding) isobtained by adding T_(rendering), which is the time taken to render thesubtitle text and transmit the rendered subtitle text to the objectbuffer 234, and T_(composition information generation), which is thetime taken to generate the composition information including therendered object and transmit the composition information to the graphicplaner 240. The time T_(char) is the time taken to render one character.Therefore, T_(rendering) is obtained by adding times taken to render allcharacters.

The size of the object buffer 234 must be equal to or larger than thesize of the object. Here, the size of the object is obtained by addingthe sizes of each character data of the object. Therefore, the number ofcharacters composing one subtitle is limited to the number of characterswhich can be stored in the object buffer 234. Also, since the objectbuffer 234 can store a plurality of subtitles, the number of characterscomposing the plurality of subtitles is also limited to the number ofcharacters which can be stored in the object buffer 234.

FIGS. 7A through 7C are diagrams illustrating a process of generating animage for a plurality of subtitles using one composition informationdata and a plurality of position information data.

In FIG. 7A, styles “Script1”, “Script2”, and “Script3” are defined asstyle information used for subtitle text rendering. Referring to FIG.7A, each of the three styles uses a font “Arial.tff”, a text color“black”, a background color “white”, a character size “16pt”, analignment method “center”, an output direction“left-to-right-top-to-bottom”, and a line-height “40px”. As a subtitletext reference position, “Script1” has coordinates (x1, y1), “Script2”has coordinates (x2, y2), and “Script3” has coordinates (x3, y3). As atext output region, “Script1” has “left1, top1, width1, height1”,“Script2” has “left2, top2, width2, height2”, and “Script3” has “left3,top3, width3, height3”.

In FIG. 7B, subtitle texts 710, 720, and 730 rendered using the styles“Script1”, “Script2”, and “Script3” are defined. Referring to FIG. 7B,the subtitle text Hello 710 uses the style “Script1” and is output from“00:10:00” to “00:15:00”, the subtitle text Subtitle 720 uses the style“Script2” and is output from “00:12:00” to “00:17:00”, and the subtitletext World 730 uses the style “Script3” and is output from “00:14:00” to“00:19:00”. Therefore, two or three subtitle texts are output between“00:12:00” and “00:17:00”. Since different scripts are used, the linechange tag <br/> is unnecessary.

FIG. 7C shows a result of outputting the subtitles defined in FIGS. 7Aand 7B. Referring to FIG. 7C, data stored in each buffer of the textsubtitle processing unit 220 in each illustrated time window will bedescribed in detail.

Before “00:10:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, when outputcomposition information includes a void subtitle image, comprises:

Element control data buffer: void;Text data buffer: void;Style data buffer: void; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

From “00:10:00” to “00:12:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, whenoutput composition information includes an image in which the subtitletext Hello 710 is rendered, comprises:

Element control data buffer: control information of the subtitle textHello 710;Text data buffer: “Hello”;Style data buffer: style information of “Script1”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

From “00:12:00” to “00:14:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, whenoutput composition information includes the subtitle text Hello 710 andthe subtitle text Subtitle 720, comprises:

Element control data buffer: control information of the subtitle textHello 710 and the subtitle text Subtitle 720;Text data buffer: “Hello” and “Subtitle”;Style data buffer: style information of “Script1” and “Script2”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

From “00:14:00” to “00:15:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, whenoutput composition information includes the subtitle text Hello 710, thesubtitle text Subtitle 720, and the subtitle text World 730, comprises:

Element control data buffer: control information of the subtitle textHello 710, the subtitle text Subtitle 720, and the subtitle text World730;Text data buffer: “Hello”, “Subtitle”, and “World”;Style data buffer: style information of “Script1”, “Script2”, and“Script3”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

From “00:15:00” to “00:17:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, whenoutput composition information includes the subtitle text Subtitle 720and the subtitle text World 730, comprises:

Element control data buffer: control information of the subtitle textSubtitle 720 and the subtitle text World 730;Text data buffer: “Subtitle” and “World”;Style data buffer: style information of “Script2” and “Script3”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

From “00:17:00” to “00:19:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, whenoutput composition information includes the subtitle text World 730,comprises:

Element control data buffer: control information of the subtitle textWorld 730;Text data buffer: “World”;Style data buffer: style information of “Script3”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

After “00:19:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, when outputcomposition information includes a void subtitle image, comprises:

Element control data buffer: void;Text data buffer: void;Style data buffer: void; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

In the second method described above, subtitle images for subtitle textsare generated by applying different styles to a plurality of subtitletexts having overlapped output times, one composition information dataincluding the subtitle images is generated, and the generatedcomposition information data is transmitted to the presentation engine230. A text subtitle processing time is the same as that of the firstmethod. That is, text subtitle processing of the output subtitles mustbe quickly performed considering a time T_(decoding) taken to performdecoding of the subtitles in the text subtitle processing unit 220 and atime T_(composition) taken to output the rendered subtitles from theobject buffer 234 to the graphic planer 240. However, in this method,since a plurality of objects exit, a rendering time is obtained byadding the times taken to render the respective objects. That is,Equation 2 calculates the rendering time.

$\begin{matrix}{{{T_{start} - T_{arrival}} \geq {T_{decoding} + T_{composition}}}{T_{decoding} = {T_{rendering} + T_{{composition}\mspace{14mu} {information}\mspace{14mu} {generation}}}}{T_{rendering} = {\sum\limits_{i = 0}^{{Num}\mspace{14mu} {of}\mspace{14mu} {obj}}T_{{OBJ}{(i)}}}}{T_{OBJ} = {\sum\limits_{i = 0}^{{Num}\mspace{14mu} {of}\mspace{14mu} {char}}T_{{char}{(i)}}}}} & {{Equation}\mspace{20mu} 2}\end{matrix}$

The number of characters of the subtitle text which can be stored in theobject buffer 234 is limited in the second method to the same as that ofthe first method.

FIGS. 8A through 8C are diagrams illustrating a process of generating animage so that one image object is included in one compositioninformation data by allocating a plurality of composition informationdata for a plurality of subtitles.

In FIG. 8A, styles “Script1”, “Script2”, and “Script3” are defined asstyle information used for subtitle text rendering. Referring to FIG.8A, each of the three styles uses a font “Arial.tff”, a text color“black”, a background color “white”, a character size “16pt”, an alignmethod “center”, an output direction “left-to-right-top-to-bottom”, anda line-height “40px”. As a subtitle text reference position, “Script1”has coordinates (x1, y1), “Script2” has coordinates (x2, y2), and“Script3” has coordinates (x3, y3). As a text output region, “Script1”has “left1, top1, width1, height1”, “Script2” has “left2, top2, width2,height2”, and “Script3” has “left3, top3, width3, height3”.

In FIG. 8B, subtitle texts 810, 820, and 830 rendered using the styles“Script1”, “Script2”, and “Script3” are defined. Referring to FIG. 8B,the subtitle text Hello 810 uses the style “Script1” and is output from“00:10:00” to “00:15:00”, the subtitle text Subtitle 820 uses the style“Script2” and is output from “00:12:00” to “00:17:00”, and the subtitletext World 830 uses the style “Script3” and is output from “00:14:00” to“00:19:00”. Therefore, two or three subtitle texts are overlappedbetween “00:12:00” and “00:17:00”.

FIG. 8C shows a result of outputting the subtitles defined in FIGS. 8Aand 8B. Referring to FIG. 8C, data stored in each buffer of the textsubtitle processing unit 220 in each illustrated time window will bedescribed in detail.

From “00:00:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, when outputcomposition information includes a void subtitle image, comprises:

Element control data buffer: void;Text data buffer: void;Style data buffer: void; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

From “00:10:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, when outputcomposition information including an image in which the subtitle textHello 810 is rendered, comprises:

Element control data buffer: load control information of the subtitletext Hello 810;Text data buffer: “Hello”;Style data buffer: style information of “Script1”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

From “00:12:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, when outputcomposition information including the subtitle text Hello 810 andcomposition information including the subtitle text Subtitle 820 isrendered, comprises:

Element control data buffer: load control information of the subtitletext Subtitle 820;Text data buffer: “Subtitle”;Style data buffer: style information of “Script2”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

From “00:14:00”: the text layout/font renderer 222, when outputcomposition information including the subtitle text Hello 810,composition information including the subtitle text Subtitle 820, andcomposition information including the subtitle text World 830 isrendered, comprises:

Element control data buffer: load control information of the subtitletext World 830;Text data buffer: “World”;Style data buffer: style information of “Script3”; andFont data buffer: font information of “Arial.ttf”.

After “00:15:00”: the text subtitle processing unit 220 does not executeany operation until preparing an output for subsequent subtitle texts tobe output after “00:19:00”. Therefore, changes of subtitles outputbetween “00:15:00” and “00:19:00” are performed by the presentationengine 230 controlling the composition information of the subtitles“Hello”, “Subtitle”, and “World” received from the text subtitleprocessing unit 220.

That is, at “00:15:00”, the presentation engine 230 deletes thecomposition information and bitmap image object of the subtitle “Hello”from the composition buffer 233 and the object buffer 234 and outputsonly the composition information of the subtitles “Subtitle” and “World”onto a screen. At “00:17:00”, the presentation engine 230 deletes thecomposition information and bitmap image object of the subtitle“Subtitle” from the composition buffer 233 and the object buffer 234 andoutputs only the composition information of the subtitle “World” ontothe screen. Also, at “00:19:00”, the presentation engine 230 deletes thecomposition information and bitmap image object of the subtitle “World”from the composition buffer 233 and the object buffer 234 and does notoutput a subtitle onto the screen any more.

In the third method described above, one subtitle image for eachsubtitle text is generated by applying different styles to a pluralityof subtitle texts having overlapped output times, one compositioninformation data is generated for each subtitle image, and the generatedplurality of composition information data are transmitted to thepresentation engine 230. A text subtitle processing time is the same asthat of the first method. While only a processing time of only onecomposition information data is considered in the first and secondmethods since one composition information data for a plurality ofsubtitle texts having overlapped output times is composed and output, aplurality of composition information data are generated and output inthe third method since each subtitle text composes a separatecomposition information data. Therefore, for a subtitle text processingstart time of the third method, the worst case, that is, a case where aplurality of composition information data for a plurality of subtitleshaving the same output start time are simultaneously generated andoutput, must be considered. This is described by Equation 3.

$\begin{matrix}{{{T_{start} - T_{arrival}} \geq {T_{decoding} + T_{composition}}}{T_{decoding} = {T_{rendering} + T_{{composition}\mspace{14mu} {information}\mspace{14mu} {generation}}}}{T_{{composition}\mspace{14mu} {information}\mspace{14mu} {generation}} = {\sum\limits_{i = 0}^{{number}\mspace{14mu} {of}\mspace{14mu} {composition}\mspace{14mu} {informatio}\mspace{14mu} {data}}T_{{composition}\mspace{14mu} {{information}{(i)}}}}}{T_{OBJ} = {\sum\limits_{i = 0}^{{Num}\mspace{14mu} {of}\mspace{14mu} {char}}T_{{char}{(i)}}}}} & {{Equation}\mspace{20mu} 3}\end{matrix}$

The time T_(composition information generation) taken to generate aplurality of composition information data is obtained by adding eachT_(composition information), which is a composition informationgeneration time of one subtitle, all together. The time T_(rendering)taken to generate a plurality of objects by rendering a plurality ofsubtitles is obtained by adding each T_(OBJ), which is a rendering timeof one subtitle, all together. The time T_(OBJ) taken to render onesubtitle is obtained by adding each T_(char), which is a rendering timeof each character included in a relative subtitle, all together.Referring to Equation 3, in order to simultaneously output a pluralityof subtitles including a plurality of characters, a sum of times takento render all characters included in the subtitles, compose theplurality of composition information data, and output the plurality ofcomposition information data must be less than a difference between asubtitle output time and a subtitle processing start time of the textsubtitle processing unit 220.

The number of characters of the subtitle text that can be stored in theobject buffer 234 is limited in the third method to the same as that ofthe first method or the second method.

As described in the third method, in an information storage medium and areproducing apparatus constructed with a structure supportingsimultaneous output of a plurality of composition information data, atext subtitle and another bitmap image can be simultaneously output ontoa screen.

Data compressed and encoded in an AV stream includes video data, audiodata, bitmap-based subtitles, and other non-subtitle bitmap images. Animage “TV-14” displayed on a top-right of a screen in order to indicatea TV program for people over 14 years old is an example of thenon-subtitle bitmap images. In a conventional method, since only onecomposition information data is output onto a screen at one time, aregion for outputting a bitmap subtitle and a region for outputting anon-subtitle bitmap image are separately defined in compositioninformation in order to simultaneously output the bitmap subtitle andthe non-subtitle bitmap image.

Accordingly, when a user turns an output of subtitles off since the userdoes not want the output of the subtitles, a decoder stops only decodingof the subtitles. Therefore, since subtitle data is not transmitted toan object buffer, the subtitles disappear from a screen, and only thenon-subtitle bitmap image is continuously output onto the screen.

When the text subtitle processing unit 220 generates an image for asubtitle using one composition information data and transmits thecomposition information data to the presentation engine 230 in order tooutput the subtitle, if an output of subtitles is turned off, anon-subtitle bitmap image recorded in an AV stream is also not output.Therefore, in a case where a plurality of composition information datacan be simultaneously output onto a screen as described in the thirdmethod of the present invention, when text subtitles are selectedinstead of bitmap subtitles, images except the bitmap subtitles incomposition information included in an AV stream can be continuouslyoutput, and the text subtitles can be output using compositioninformation generated by the text subtitle processing unit 220. That is,the text subtitles and the other non-subtitle bitmap images can besimultaneously output onto the screen.

The present invention may be embodied in a general-purpose computer byrunning a program from a computer-readable medium, including but notlimited to storage media such as magnetic storage media (ROMs, RAMs,floppy disks, magnetic tapes, etc.), optically readable media (CD-ROMs,DVDs, etc.), and carrier waves (transmission over the internet). Thepresent invention may be embodied as a computer-readable medium having acomputer-readable program code unit embodied therein for causing anumber of computer systems connected via a network to effect distributedprocessing. And the functional programs, codes and code segments forembodying the present invention may be easily deducted by programmers inthe art which the present invention belongs to.

As described above, according to an embodiment of the present invention,a subtitle file can be easily produced, and subtitles for an AV streamcan be output in various forms.

Although a few embodiments of the present invention have been shown anddescribed, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art thatchanges may be made in these embodiments without departing from theprinciples and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined inthe claims and their equivalents.

1. A reproducing method using an information storage medium comprisingaudio-visual (AV) data, comprising: reading at least one text subtitledata and style information which corresponds to the at least one textsubtitle data and designates an output form of the at least one textsubtitle data, from the information storage medium; and decoding thestyle information and displaying the at least one text subtitle datausing the style information, wherein the style information compriseslocation information on a region in which the at least one text subtitledata is output, and information on a position at which the at least onetext subtitle data is output within the region.
 2. A reproducing methodusing an information storage medium comprising audio-visual (AV) data,comprising: reading first text subtitle data, first style informationwhich corresponds to the first text subtitle data and designates anoutput form of the first text subtitle data, second text subtitle data,and second style information which corresponds to the second textsubtitle data and designates an output form of the second text subtitledata, from the information storage medium; and decoding the first styleinformation and the second style information, and displaying the firsttext subtitle data and the second text subtitle data at differentlocations on a screen simultaneously using the first style informationand the second style information, wherein the first style informationcomprises location information on a first region in which the first textsubtitle data is output and information on a position at which the firsttext subtitle data is output within the first region, and the secondstyle information comprises location information on a second region inwhich the second text subtitle data is output and information on aposition at which the second text subtitle data is output within thesecond region.